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Mobile-only streaming service Quibi sees more than 300,000 downloads on launch day

  • Quibi, rolled out on Monday, stands for ‘quick bites’ and offers slickly produced movies in chunks of 10 minutes or shorter
  • The service, currently available only in the United States and Canada, will also deliver reality shows and news

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Quibi chief executive Meg Whitman speaks during a Quibi keynote address at the CES 2020 trade show in Las Vegas, Nevada, on January 8. Photo: Reuters
Reuters

Mobile-only streaming service Quibi racked up more than 300,000 downloads on its launch day, industry site Sensor Tower said on Tuesday, as stay-at-home viewers lapped up its short films starring Hollywood A-listers.

The service is founded by Jeffrey Katzenberg, the former chief of Walt Disney Co’s movie studio and DreamWorks Animation, and headed by former eBay and Hewlett Packard chief executive Meg Whitman.

Quibi, rolled out on Monday, stands for “quick bites” and offers slickly produced movies, such as Hunger Games actor Liam Hemsworth’s thriller Most Dangerous Game, in chunks of 10 minutes or shorter.

The service, currently available only in the United States and Canada, will also deliver reality shows and news. Basketball superstar LeBron James appears in a documentary about his Ohio school for at-risk youth.

Quibi offers a 90-day free trial and will cost US$5 a month with ads, or US$8 a month without them, after that period.

Still, the downloads were fewer than Walt Disney’s streaming service, Disney+, first day downloads, which stood at 4 million, Sensor Tower data showed.

Quibi will compete with full-fledged streaming services such as Disney+, HBO Max, Amazon.com’s Prime Video and Netflix, as well as short-form entertainment platforms like TikTok and Google subsidiary YouTube.
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